At the centre of Rishi Sunak’s plan to stop illegal migration is ‘deterrence.’ His flagship policy, the ‘Rwanda Plan,’ is set up to “deter people taking perilous journeys across the channel” by making them believe they won’t be able to stay in Britain. Yet those who visit the migrant camp in Calais know this is a “far-fetched threat” since crossers believe “they’ll [n]ever be deported to Rwanda.”
Figures released today show there is a strong grounding for this belief. Since 2020, just 1%—one percent—of migrants who arrived in Britain illegally on small boats have been deported.
Information given to the Home Affairs Committee reveals that just 1,182 of the 111,833 who have crossed the channel have been removed by the Home Office, according to The Times.
The paper adds that 95% of illegal arrivals from Albania have been allowed to stay, despite this being deemed a safe country.
Critics are also not convinced that the Rwanda bill, which passed its second reading vote in parliament on Tuesday after Tory ‘rebels’ backed out from voting against it, will make any difference. Migration Watch UK Chairman Alp Mehmet told The European Conservative:
I doubt [this] will have much impact even if flights start before the general election, and there’s no guarantee that they will.
Thanks to its inaction, the government is now highly likely to miss its target of clearing the backlog of 92,000 asylum cases. Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove described many of these cases as “complex, challenging, difficult.” He added that they are made all the more difficult by lengthy delays which lead to migrants “laying down roots,” allegedly strengthening their case for staying.
Pursglove’s colleague Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, said the number of removals must be “significantly higher than they are.” But there is not yet any indication that this rhetoric will be matched with action.
